The responses presented in this section come directly from communities
with pay-as-you-throw programs. The information was excerpted from
an EPA workshop attended by over a dozen officials from pay-as-you-throw
communities and state solid waste agencies. Individuals looking for
more information on pay-as-you-throw will find critical real-world
experiences and strategies reflected in the questions and answers.

"For 27,000 residences, we have three people.
One person answers the phones out front...for very basic
questions. For more detailed questions, I have two more
individuals who can respond. But if the question is very
difficult, it goes up to another level."

- Pasadena, CA

"[We] moved from a franchise flat-fee system
to a franchise sticker system in May 1990. [Our] administrative
staffing needs were unchanged: one person oversees the
activities of [our] franchise hauler. City council members
and existing staff put in overtime to develop details
of the new system and negotiate with the hauler during
the implementation process. The hauler has reported some
increased accounting complexity but no increased staffing
needs."

"It does require a significant review of your agency's
goals and structure. But this examination of new needs
and existing employees could lead to the discovery of
some previously untapped skills in your agency."

"When you start unit pricing, determine if there
are certain reports that you want to be able to generate
from the billing system and make sure you get that capability
integrated in your billing system right away. Later on,
this type of modification can be just horrible and extremely
expensive."

- Seattle, WA

"Mansfield originally had a private system, with
the haulers doing the billing. When we implemented our
unit pricing program, the town took over billing. We find
that one of the side benefits is that we can lien property.
The haulers have liked the system very much because they
know they are going to get paid every month. And that
might be a way to sell it in a community that is also
planning to take over the billing."

- Mansfield, CT

"We do our combined billing with the city's water
department and drainage and waste water utility. We do
have the lien authority and essentially can turn off the
water if somebody doesn't pay their bill. The problem
is that we have to deal with a lot of complaints from
their customers, and it doesn't always lead to the best
results for us in terms of a quality billing system."

- Seattle, WA

"In some places in Minnesota, we are using a two-tiered
(fixed plus variable fee) system that is separate from
the garbage collection billing system. The government
collects some of the fixed costs to offset it."

"If you're tight for cash, you need to know what's
coming in and what's going out. It's very important to
build in lags in your billing system. There's going to
be some lag time in how people respond to unit pricing,
and that tends to work to your benefit. You need to be
conservative about the rate at which people reduce their
solid waste, particularly customers using the extra can,
especially if you have high extra can rates."

- Seattle, WA

"We collect quarterly and in advance. That solves
a lot of the cash flow problems."

"The advantage of stickers is that there is no
billing at all. They're applicable to various types of
service, types of containers, and types of waste. With
a simple, uniform schedule, stickers could be ordered
through the mail. Or somebody could buy 50 stickers at
a time from a hauler or from the local grocery store.
The stickers are easy to keep, and they are not going
to rot.... And stickers are very simple. Since every second
[haulers] spend at a stop is money to them, the more data
collection or enforcement that you require per stop, the
less likely they are to do it. It's a time limit. But
stickers are not perfect. The adhesive can be a problem.
The hauler might not be able to find them. Stickers can
be stolen off someone else's garbage bag. And maybe the
biggest problem is that people could buy a year's worth
of bags in January and then not buy any more for the next
several months. It is really hard to have to predict people's
behavior in order to forecast revenue. The largest community
in Illinois that has a sticker program is the City of
Aurora, which has 100,000 people."

- State of Illinois

"Stickers are interesting because you can take
a big bag that you [have from shopping] at the store and
put your garbage in it and put a sticker on it. Then you
are reusing that bag and not generating another waste
product."

How do you handle it when people want
to change the size of the containers they use?

"Do not underestimate how many people will select
the smallest cart [that is, container]. Right off the
bat, we went $2,100 in the hole because of all the people
who were going to do the 'right thing,' picking 30-gallon
carts. In other words, be prepared for your program to
become successful. Secondly, when it comes to cart exchanges,
the startup costs for this program are really high. You
really need to talk to your politicians and everyone and
get it all in a nice spreadsheet and realize that you're
going to bite the bullet for the first 3 to 6 months of
the program. We offer a free cart exchange the first time,
and then charge $15 subsequently. But we were estimating
that a total of 15 percent ended up changing in Austin.
Instead of doing any surveying up front on the carts,
we had to rely on the household size for estimates."

- Austin, TX

"The thing that my staff keeps coming back to me
about is the administrative cost of making changes. Our
rule is, you can't change service levels more often than
every 6 months. Only every 6 months, however, even with
27,000 customers, means that there's somebody changing
every single day. We don't charge for changing service
right now, but I think that we must begin to charge for
changes in order to create a disincentive. Soon, if you
want to change, it's going to cost you $15 to $25 to make
that change."

"Unit pricing communities agree that planning for
success is important during the design process. Some communities
have found that cans as small as 10 to 20 gallons are
needed! For example, Olympia, Washington, offers residents
a 10-gallon can and Victoria, British Columbia, uses a
22-gallon can as the base service level. A number of communities
using large containers (such as 60-gallon cans) are finding
that these containers are too large to offer customers
meaningful incentives, but purchasing and delivering new,
smaller cans later in the program is very expensive. In
the short run, a broader range of service can be provided
by using several smaller cans. This also helps keep the
system flexible for future changes."

"Municipal officials and experts agree--no unit
pricing program is going to work if residents oppose it.
Since improved solid waste management requires a good
faith effort from residents to reduce the amount of waste
they dispose of, it makes sense to include residents as
equal partners."

"...Getting some good public support by working
on it early is very important. Contact not only recycling
groups but also community councils, people whom you might
not expect to be big advocates of a unit pricing program."

- Seattle, WA

"The public opposition question comes up for communities
that currently pay for their garbage collection out of
general taxes (for example, property taxes). In a sense,
that's a hidden cost, and people perceive garbage collection
as a free service. But if they have a monthly bill, they
know that garbage collection costs something and there's
'no free lunch.' Then, in moving to a unit pricing program,
they can actually see that the cost of garbage collection
comes down. If the costs are hidden in property taxes
or general revenue, no matter how far waste collection
costs drop, they see unit pricing as an added cost."

"The way we introduced the program (this takes
a lot of leg work but is extremely important) is that
we contacted neighborhood and civic associations, as well
as our recycling block leaders.... We produced an 8-minute
video on unit pricing and played the video at the neighborhood
meetings. We had real people talking about what was about
to happen. We got a lot of feedback by showing that tape.
We carried out two focus group surveys, including one
on larger families, an issue that many people want to
hear more about. We [also] experimented with soliciting
feedback [using] a telephone voicemail system."

- Austin, TX

"...It is absolutely key to put yourself on the
firing line with the customers. They pay the fees. When
we went to the community we assured them, 'We're not taking
anything away from you. We are giving you the opportunity
to have more control over your costs. You cut your trash
down, you cut your trash bill down.' You need to listen....
Once the people actually experience the program, they
become converts, they don't want to go back. Either you
take the time up front to educate, or you take it later
with operational difficulties once the program is under
way."

How do you avoid confusing your customers
when informing them about new program details?

"...We targeted our audiences...by using direct
mail, a newsletter, and door hangers. In these, we explained
how to set out your wheeled cart, where it should face,
and how to share with a neighbor (that is, go ahead and
pull two carts together on a neighbor's boundary at the
yard so that it's fewer stops for the collector). So,
we steer topical information to specifically reach the
affected audience. We choose to use easy terms to promote
the program. It's important to keep messages simple and
clear."

"Our educational costs [in FY '92] ranged from
$6 to $8 per household per year in the early years. Most
of those costs were startup costs. We saved a lot of money
by doing all of our work in-house--designing a user-friendly
name and a regular way of communicating in our pilot program.
We had three full-time staff members for education. One
person was assigned to public relations, another was a
graphic artist that participated in many things, and [a]
planner. Also, we utilized volunteers (such as recycling
block leaders or neighborhood association presidents)
who provided the leg work in getting the word out."

- Austin, TX

"Seattle spends $3.25 per household per year on
public education, but that is actually high because a
portion of that money goes to educating at commercial
and transfer stations. So it's probably under $3."

Is it really necessary to explain the
new program repeatedly through so many different avenues?

"Not all citizens find garbage fascinating, nor
will they immediately understand the reasons for a new
waste management program. Explaining a new program more
than once is not rude or insulting--it's a courtesy to
people who would like to participate but have other things
on their minds. Also, because unit pricing requires that
residents pay attention to details such as labeling waste
containers with stickers or buying bags from the municipality,
hearing the message several times increases the chance
that all residents will get the information they need."

"Enforcement efforts can be made more cost effective
through publicity. It only takes one enforcement instance
along with a lot of big publicity to send a loud message
to people who might be thinking about illegally dumping.
In Maine, we had a very large investigation of private
haulers who were hauling to other municipal landfills
with lower fees. The investigation was blown up in the
press, with nightly TV coverage. It stopped a lot of the
illegal dumping in other communities."

- State of Maine

"We have a part-time garbage enforcement agent
who works a couple days a week on enforcement and public
education."

How can we discourage residents from putting
non-recyclable materials into recycling bins?

"Some residents may tend to be sloppy about source
separation [of recyclable material] regardless of the
type of solid waste pricing system. As people learn to
reduce their costs by recycling more, however, they may
become more inclined to introduce non-recyclables in their
recycling bins. Many communities have found the best solution
is a good education and enforcement program that creates
a sense of ownership among residents, supported by peer
pressure against such behavior."

Why is it so critical to spend time thinking
about specific goals and objectives?

"It will probably be easy to get a broad consensus
that some things are 'good,' such as saving money or reducing
disposal rates. But solid waste management in general
and unit pricing in particular often involves a series
of tradeoffs. For example, a community may decide to sacrifice
some convenience for households to cut costs or to create
a stronger waste reduction incentive. Establishing goals
and priorities early in the planning process can make
it easier to make difficult choices as they arise."

"In all fairness, I want to stress that it's not
unit pricing per se that is driving illegal dumping. It
is also driven by growing restrictions on what you can
put in the garbage can. I believe restrictions may have
more effect on illegal dumping than unit pricing."

- State of Minnesota

"I think the key here is not to associate illegal
diversion with variable rates. There is always going to
be some amount of illegal dumping, especially in hard
economic times. So you have a multitude of factors that
are contributing to what is generally called illegal dumping.
The key here is education and providing alternatives such
as legal diversions (for example, recycling and composting)
and constructive source reduction actions."

- Pasadena, CA

"...I would like to underscore that in our experience
neighbors have not put their garbage in the cans of other
neighbors. We have had some calls--not many--from people
who swore that their neighbor had put additional recyclables
in front of the caller's bins. We investigated and found
out it was the hauler who had put all the bins on one
side of the street so he could make one stop."

"...Communities can pass ordinances that require
a franchise to do business [as a waste hauler]. In this
way, local governments can help create a level playing
field. We designed an ordinance that makes haulers buy
franchises from the city. We put as much flexibility into
the ordinance as possible, but at the same time established
some sort of guidelines. This ensures that everyone is
working under the same terms and conditions, whether it's
one person, one truck hauler, or a bigger hauling firm."

- Pasadena, CA

"If your goal is to encourage source reduction,
you might have to employ mandates.... As an example, in
Minneapolis and St. Paul they enacted ordinances that
require food establishments to have food packaging that
is either returnable, reusable, or recyclable--that's
really a cutting-edge area. Also, don't forget to amend
your solid waste ordinance to allow for backyard composting
and set up some standards and advertise them to protect
against rodents and odor."

Our municipality is on a tight budget.
Do we really need to spend money on data collection and
monitoring?

"While many of your unit pricing decisions face
budgetary constraints, data collection is essential for
planning and for ensuring cost effectiveness. The right
kind of information can show which type of unit pricing
program and rate modifications can best meet the community's
needs over time."

What has been your experience with applying
unit pricing to apartment/multi-family housing?

"We've had a broad range of issues providing unit
pricing to residents of apartments/multi-family housing.
These include contract relations, design, enforcement,
and deciding whether the city or haulers will serve these
units. Also, if you're going to do unit pricing in a big
city with lots of apartments/multi-family housing, you
have to have a reliable billing system...."

"In Illinois, communities tend to charge what their
neighbors do. The rates vary from $1 to $2 a sticker.

- State of Illinois

"For bag systems in the Midwest and Pennsylvania,
communities charge about $1 to $2 per 30-gallon bag. For
variable can programs in the Northwest and California,
towns charge $9 to $15 for the first level of service
(20- to 40-gallon cans), with charges for additional cans
of service ranging from 30¢ to $15."

We have an existing variable-rate can
program. How can we increase the incentive for waste reduction?

"The key change to make is to base your billing
on actual set-outs rather than using a subscription approach.
Offer smaller cans to encourage waste reduction, and consider
a bag-based system. Upgrading composting and recycling
options (including plastics collection, for example, if
you don't already) also will provide an incentive for
customers to reduce waste...."

"Yard trimmings systems...can easily be implemented
as programs that are complementary to unit pricing. If
the household properly manages its yard trimmings by composting
or keeping grass clippings on its lawns (grass cycling),
it can avoid disposal costs without much effort. Second,
a yard trimmings system costs almost nothing for the community,
except relatively low infrastructure costs. And a yard
trimmings system can reduce the total amount of residential
waste by up to 30 percent, depending on where you live
and how great a quantity of yard trimmings you have initially."

- State of Illinois

"In Pasadena, 15 to 20 percent of the population
has signed up for separate collection of yard trimmings.
They put out an average of 50 pounds per household per
year. If I could increase my participation in this program
to 30 percent and everybody put out 50 pounds, then that's
a big savings on landfill tipping fees. In addition, yard
trimmings are dense compared with plastic, which is light
relative to its volume. If your ultimate goal is to keep
tonnage out of the landfill, then dollar for dollar you
have a lot bigger bang for the buck with a yard trimmings
program."

What is the experience of communities
with recycling and pay-as-you-throw?

"Well, we found a big increase in recycling participation
when we went from drop-off recycling to curbside pickup....
I don't think our unit pricing program would work as well
without curbside pickup of recyclables."

- Mansfield, CT

"For some very rural communities it is prohibitively
expensive to do curbside collection [of recyclables] once
a week. In central Illinois, communities have curbside
collection of recyclables once a month, and they found
that it's actually working quite well. When they went
to unit pricing, they just offered refuse bag collection
once a week and recyclables collection once a month."

Some communities already have household
hazardous waste pickup or drop-off. How can these programs
work with a unit pricing program?

"You may be able to share expenses with other city
agencies. In addition to our yard trimmings, curbside
recycling, and bulky item pickup programs, we have a household
hazardous waste program. The payment for this came from
our wastewater treatment department, not from our landfill
tipping fee--[their] staff are just as concerned about
hazardous waste going into the wastewater system as we
are about it going into the landfill."

"What we came up with seems to be working well.
We sent a note [to households] that said, 'If you are
over 62 years of age or if you are disabled, call for
special rates.' Almost 10 percent of our population has
called and about 5 percent are on the special rates right
now. The special rate for senior citizens is a 10-percent
discount. They can choose any service option they want,
because we found that their needs varied."

"We don't have any family rates, but we do have
a low-income rate. This summer we qualified low-income...customers
for rate assistance. We include [in the low-income rate]
all households who are under the federal poverty line."

- Seattle, WA

"...If you're looking for standards, try to find
something that is an established standard--not something
that you create for your city. That's where we had problems....
Pasadena is a more expensive place to live than other
places in the nation. It's difficult to defend a low-income
standard if it's not already established."